Wren
I woke up with my hands tied to a chair, and the first thing I did was take stock, the way Zephyr taught me.
Head: pounding, but clear. Body: bruised everywhere, nothing broken. I flexed against the ropes the way I'd been drilled, and felt them give just slightly at the left wrist, and filed that away. Room: a cabin, old, one room, fire in a black stove, boarded windows with dusk bleeding through the cracks. Smell: pine, mold, unwashed men, and under it all, ash and herbs, the scent that eats trails.
And him.
Kellan sat on a stool by the stove, watching me. He'd been watching me wake up. Enjoying it.
The last time I saw him, he was beautiful. That was his whole trick, the beauty. Now the badlands had gotten into his face. He'd gone lean and gray-skinned, his hair grown wild, and
